Tremonti says financial woes "at end of the beginning"

MILAN (Reuters) - The global financial crisis is far from over and is probably only nearing the end of its initial phase, Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Sunday.

"All crises finish and this one will finish too," Tremonti told a centre-right political gathering in Milan. "It's hard to say which phase we are in, we are probably still at the end of the beginning."

Tremonti, who has often criticized the rapid globalization process since the mid-1990s, said the world which emerges from the current financial turmoil, "will be different, based more on work and less on debt, more on manufacturing and less on finance."

"No-one says finance has no function, but finance doesn't create anything," he said.

Tremonti will meet other European finance ministers in Luxembourg on Monday and Tuesday to discuss proposals in the wake of Saturday's crisis summit among the leaders of Europe's four largest economies, Germany, Britain, France and Italy.

(Reporting by Valentina Za; writing by Gavin Jones; editing by Erica Billingham)